


Playacting

by barricadeofmedusa



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:58:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barricadeofmedusa/pseuds/barricadeofmedusa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, the one where John becomes an actor after Reichenbach because it’s his only way to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playacting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WingsUnfurled](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingsUnfurled/gifts).



> This is a Viclockians Secret Santa fic for wingsunfurled. Merry Christmas. :)

In John’s opinion, the hardest thing about being an actor isn’t the acting or the waiting or even the crush of fans everywhere he goes. He’s surprisingly used to that by now. The hardest thing is facing the questions.

 

“Why did you become an actor?”

_Because my best friend threw himself off a building. Because I wanted to follow him. Because my therapist told me to find a new hobby._

 

He lies.

 

And then he goes back to his lonely hotel room and tells the real answer to the skull he pinched off the mantelpiece. It’s the only thing he takes out of 221B that wasn’t his to begin with. He guards the rest fiercely though, even from Mycroft.

 

It’s been three years. Three years and he’s still not over it. He has a life, of sorts, but it’s not really _his_. He spends his time pretending to be someone else. Anyone else. He’s getting good at that, pretending.

 

He can act for the camera. He can act for the fans. He even did a brief stint in a play and that turned out quite well. He can’t act for Mrs Hudson. Or Molly. Or Lestrade. Or Mycroft. He can’t act for anyone who _knows_. But it’s okay, because they never ask.

 

He has a bit of a ritual now. After every film, every TV spot, every episode, as soon as he can get his hands on a copy, he’ll take it to Sherlock. He’ll take a picnic blanket, lunch and his laptop. He’ll sit against Sherlock’s tombstone and they’ll watch it together. John likes to think Sherlock might care. At least enough to comment derisively. It’s a hard ritual to keep up with his busy work schedule now, and it’s a trying one in the dead of winter with snow on the ground, but it’s one of the few fragments of his life John won’t budge on.

 

He takes a pause before accepting every award and thinks ‘ _To Sherlock_ ’ before thanking his friends, his co-workers, everyone. He still can’t say it. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to. It’s too late, after all.

 

* * *

 

John is an international movie star, even if he doesn’t recognise it himself. His face is plastered on billboard after billboard. He has _figurines_. He’s one of the up and coming actors and that makes him a hot commodity. John is everywhere.

 

It makes it incredibly hard for Sherlock to forget him.

 

Not that Sherlock could ever forget John. John is part of him. Sherlock is fairly sure he’s deleted how to function without John hovering in the back of his mind. _Forget_ isn’t the right word, perhaps. But _ignore_ isn’t the right one either. He doesn’t want to forget John, or ignore him. He just doesn’t want to _remember_ him because John is distracting and Sherlock can’t concentrate on Moriarty’s web when he’s _distracted_ and he has to concentrate because that’ll bring him back to John faster and somewhere along the line it just doesn’t _work_.

 

It’s been three years. John still thinks Sherlock is dead. It’s better this way. It’s safer. Sherlock has been dismantling Moriarty’s operations one by one, slowly carding through for the right names, the right links. It’s frustratingly slow.

 

Sherlock travels with a memory stick hanging around his neck. It sits under his clothes. It’s waterproof and bulletproof and it contains a digital copy of every film, show, recording or interview John has done in the three years since they parted. It’s _sentiment_ , but it’s what Sherlock needs. He’s not accustomed to needing anything. He’s watched them all more times than he can say and likely more times than he would admit to. He can’t be sure on the second point though, because he no longer has anyone to admit something to. So it’s moot, and he’ll delete it.

 

He finds he dislikes the taste of popcorn.

He can’t stand romantic comedy.

Science fiction is illogical.

And daytime television leaves him more bored than he ever thought possible.

 

He watches them anyway.

He has to.

He’s just glad John has never done a procedural crime show.

 

Sherlock watches the livestream at the airport, waiting for a flight to Barcelona. It’s an interview for some charity Sherlock has deleted. Sherlock doesn’t actually like the interviews, but he’ll take what he can get. He doesn’t mind watching John act. He minds watching John act as _John_. It’s in the smile that goes to his eyes but doesn’t crinkle his nose. It’s the pauses between sentences where he should have just blurted out his thoughts. It’s the way he answers the questions about how he got into acting. And then there’s the limp –barely there, hardly noticeable, but visible all the same to someone who had run halfway across London with John by his side, panting and laughing. It’s the stiffness in his shoulders. It’s his eyes.

 

Sherlock can see, in John’s eyes, how sad he still is.

 

How lost.

 

The interviewer turns to John.

 

“You’ve lead quite a life before deciding to become an actor. And I guess the question I’m dying to ask is…”

 

No.

 

Not this.

 

Anything but this.

  
“…can you tell us anything about your past association with the infamous Sherlock Holmes?”

 

John freezes. Sherlock almost drops the laptop. Neither remembers to breathe.

 

John’s brain switches to autopilot and he stammers out an answer. “S-Sherlock was a good friend of mine.” He looks down, closes his eyes for a moment, and then looks back up at the interviewer.

 

He repeats himself, more confidently this time. “Sherlock was my friend. My _best_ friend.”

 

A pause.

 

A long pause. The audience is fidgeting, but the interviewer can sense it. There’s something else he wants to say, something he’s been turning over in his head for a long time and she’ll be damned if she cuts in now.

John turns to the camera and stares straight down the barrel.

 

“And I still believe in him.”

 

He can’t. It’s not right, but it’s true anyway. It’s part of the truth. He’s not ready for the rest.

 

The interview concludes and Sherlock is left staring at a black screen with text that tells him cheerily that the full video will be available on the website shortly.

 

Suddenly, it’s too much and not enough. Suddenly, three years is too long. In that brief moment, that one confession, Sherlock saw the real John. For one moment in the past three years, Sherlock saw John without his haze of acting and defensive façades. For one moment, Sherlock remembered.

 

There’s a flight to London in half an hour. One seat left.

 

Sherlock almost takes it.

 

* * *

 

The question doesn’t hit John until he’s in the taxi. It doesn’t hit until he realises he’s in London, and he’s not headed towards a hotel. He panics. There was a reason John shut off his new life from his old. It was the only way. But right now, he can’t stop it. He can barely think. There is no divide between John and _John_ because one mention of that name was enough to bring it all crashing back down. Sherlock Holmes can bring John’s life to a standstill with single sentence. Even in death. Especially in death.

 

John sleeps on Harry’s couch that night, same as he did three years ago. It’s hard to believe that much time has passed when he’s really just back at the beginning again. There is his life with Sherlock, and then there is only playacting. Hold music. An unfinished blog.


End file.
